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Aviation History
1983
1983 - 1289.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT BAA profits fall in 1982/83 LONDON The British Airports Author ity has announced a £35 million profit for its financial year ending March 31, 1983—£4-7 million less than it recorded in 1981/82. The BAA pinpoints the freeze in the overall level of landing fees as the chief cause of the dip in profits, but reports that during 1982/83 passenger traffic increased by 1 per cent and BAA's capital investment in airport facilities rose to £100 million—one-third of its £284 million turnover. Current traffic trends are healthy, too, according to the BAA, with passenger traffic for June showing a 7 per cent increase. Heathrow made a £45-7 million trading profit in 1982/83, compared with a £46-3 million profit the previous year. The airport handled 26-3 million pas sengers, 0-7 per cent fewer than in 1981/82, and Heathrow's capital expendi ture increased 87 per cent to £62 million. A large propor tion of this was spent on Terminal 4, due to open in 1985. Gatwick made a small trading profit of £775,000 in 1982/83, a drop from the £1 • 3 million profit recorded in the previous year. The airport handled 11-3 million passengers during the period, 3 • 6 per cent more than in the previous year. European char ter traffic out of Gatwick increased by 13 per cent, with particularly rapid growth on routes to Spain and Italy (20 per cent and 40 per cent respectively). Stansted suffered a £4-6 million trading loss in 1982/83, compared with a £4-3 million loss in the previous year. Nonetheless, the airport did report a 9-2 per cent increase in the number of passengers handled to 300,000 in the year. The BAA's four Scottish Airports—Prestwick, Aber deen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh—suffered a com bined £3-5 million loss, with only Glasgow and Edinburgh recording small trading prof its. BAA chairman Norman Payne says, however, that the move towards getting the four airports to break even is "well advanced". Gulf Air regains Manila DOHA The Philippines appears to have caved in under heavy diplomatic pressure from the Arab oil producers to allow Gulf Air to resume the Bahrain-Manila service which was suspended in March. Gulf Air had been refused Manila landing rights by the Philippines Aeronautics Traffic did not improve at all of BAJ 's airports BAA TRAFFIC RESULTS FOR THE TWELVE MONTHS TO MARCH 31 Terminal passengers (international) Terminal passengers (domestic) Total terminal passengers Transit passengers Total passengers Scheduled air transport movements (fixed-wing) Non-scheduled air transport movements (fixed-wing) Helicopter air transport movements Total air transport movements Total other movements (general aviation. training, etc) Total all movements Cargo (tonnes) Mail (tonnes) Cargo and mail (tonnes) 1982/83 34,311,000 9,074,800 43,385,800 715,400 44,101,200 415,700 102,000 41,200 558,900 195,800 754,700 598,900 86,400 685,300 1981/82 34,333,000 8,638,200 42,974,200 758,000 43,729,200 405,100 97,600 33,900 536,600 201,400 738,000 618,400 81,200 699,600 1983 Change per cent -0-1 50 10 -5 6 09 2 6 4-5 21-5 4-2 -2-8 2-3 -3-2 6-4 -20 Boeing's first 737-300 is well on its way along the production line. Here the first upper wing panel moves through a riveting machine at the company's Renton plant Board on the grounds that its leased Middle East Airlines Boeing 747 was a third- country charter, and thus a violation of the bilateral aviation agreement. It is believed in the Gulf region that what Manila really does not like is the replacement by Gulf Air of a TriStar with a 747 on the route in question. Senior Philippine Airlines executive Josemaria Estrada tells Flight that Gulf Air had filed a new application which remedied the "deficiencies" (unspecified) in the previous one. Several rounds of talks had taken place, and PAL says now that it is "examining operations from Abu Dhabi and Doha ... and pursuing plans to expand operations in respect of Kuwait and Baghdad". One small incongruity remains, as Gulf Air sees things. Dubai is the only member of the United Arab Emirates which does not designate Gulf Air its national carrier. It has just granted the private carrier Aero Filipina a weekly service to Sharjah from Manila (via Sri Lanka). This new operation will fly 707s initially, but will upgrade to TriStars if business warrants it. The Manila-Gulf routes are already subject to fierce discounting. As well as tourist traffic to and from the Far East, the routes attract considerable business from Filipino contract workers in the Gulf. The Emirates alone is estimated to have a resident 30,000 Filipino population. NEWS SCAN France and Japan have amended their bilateral air agreement to give their flag carriers extra rights. Air France received rights to extend its Paris-Tokyo route to Seoul, South Korea, while Japan Air Lines obtained rights to Zurich for its Tokyo- Paris polar flights. JAL has been provisionally operating the Tqkyo-Zurich-Paris route since January, and Air France introduced the Seoul route to one of its four weekly Paris- Tokyo flights on July 4. A conference on finance for regional, commuter, and corporate aviation is to be held at the Savoy Hotel, London, on September 19 and 20. The conference, sponsored by Airfinance Journal, will include presentations on such topics as deregulation and the US regional carrier, insurance for commuter and corporate aircraft, high technology as a cost saving factor, and finan cing the regional start-up. For details contact Airfinance Journal in Great Britain tele phone Coggeshall 62262 or in New York telephone 212 227 2860. The first 11-62 service from Moscow to Yakutsk was operated on June 25, following completion of the new runway at Yakutsk. The flight took six hours, compared with the current ten-hour journey by Tu-154. which stops en route. FLIGHT International, 23 July 1983 177
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